The Excalibur Alternative

"Except that in this case no surrenders are being accepted."

"They're that determined?" Mugabi's voice was equally quiet, and he winced when Stevenson nodded. "I knew they wanted to smash the threat they think we represent. And I knew they wouldn't turn a hair at wiping us out to do that. But I guess it's part of that emotional inability to accept that there's no alternative to extinction that you're talking about. Somehow a part of me has always believed, even in the middle of the war games that proved we don't stand a chance militarily, that if we just bit the bullet and crawled on our bellies to them, they'd at least let us survive as their slaves."

" 'Fraid not," Stevenson sighed. "Apparently we've scared them even more than we'd realized. I think it's not just us, anymore. I think they're afraid that our example might be contagious. We could be a valuable asset to them, I suppose, but as far as they're concerned, our very existence is an eternal threat to their stability, and they've decided to eliminate it once and for all. Especially since eliminating it will also be a pointed warning to any of the other protected races whose attitudes we may already have contaminated."

"So there's no way out," Mugabi said softly.

"No way at all," Stevenson agreed.

"How long?"

"It's hard to say. Our information arrived with an Ostowii courier."

Stevenson paused, and Mugabi nodded impatiently. The Ostowii were one of the senior slave races of the Federation, often acting as overseers and supervisors for the races who held seats on the Council. But despite the special privileges their position brought them, the Ostowii's hatred for their masters was every bit as deep as any other slave's. They'd become one of humanity's best sources very early on.

"The courier was one of their transgenders, and it wasn't in the military or diplomatic service. It's a merchant factor, and it was simply passing through on its way to another assignment. One of its clan superiors decided that we needed the information and used it to pass the warning to us, but its ship can't be more than a month or two ahead of the official instructions to Lach'heranu. And you and I both know how she'll react to them when she gets them."

Mugabi nodded again, this time grimly. Fleet Commander Lach'heranu was a Saernai, and the Saernai had been pressing for a more... proactive response to the human threat to galactic stability from the very begi

"So," Stevenson went on levelly, "it looks like we're screwed whatever we do. I don't know whether or not the President will go ahead and offer our formal surrender, but I wouldn't really be very surprised if she doesn't. If there's no point in surrendering, and if the bastards are going to wipe us out—except perhaps for a little breeding stock on some primitive planet somewhere where it can be massaged into proper docility—then we might as well go down swinging."

"I can't say I disagree," Mugabi said. "But I hope she realizes that all we'll be doing is kicking and scratching on the way to the gallows. My people will do everything humanly possible, but I doubt we'll manage to do any more damage than inflicting a few scratches on their paint. Assuming we manage even that much."

"Oh, she understands," Stevenson told him with a sad smile. "But if we're dead anyway, then let's go out on our feet, not our knees. Who knows? We might get lucky and scratch that paint. And even if we don't," he shrugged, "maybe, just maybe, we'll be the example that somewhere, sometime, provides the spark to push some other poor bunch of slaves into standing up on their hind legs and going for the Council's throat."

Alex Stevenson would have lost his bet, Quentin Mugabi thought, although he was far too weary and crushed by despair to feel any satisfaction about it.

The Kulavo clearly had been unwilling to admit, even now, to the practice of real politik on such a ruthless scale, and the diplomatic note from the Federation Council had all the earmarks of a classic ultimatum... except for the absence of any clear specification of the consequences which would attach to its rejection. In fact, there was a distinctly Kulavo-like mealymouthedness to its appeal to the moral rectitude of its authors. There was something greasy-feeling about it, and Mugabi suspected that the only common ground he and Fleet Commander Lach'heranu would ever have was the contempt they both felt for the Councilors who'd drafted it.

Of course, they felt that contempt for rather different reasons.

"... and so, Fleet Commander," President Sarah Dresner said from the huge screen, "I feel certain that we can reach a peaceful resolution of the current unfortunate situation if the Council is made aware of our willingness to consider its views and to accommodate them to the very greatest extent possible."

The screen on SNS Terra's flag deck was normally the main repeater for CIC's battle plot. At the moment, however, it was configured for communication purposes, and for the last seven hours it had borne the split images of Dresner and Lach'heranu so that Mugabi, as the Solarian Navy's senior commander in space, could be kept abreast of the negotiations. Lach'heranu had raised no objection to his inclusion in the communications loop, which Mugabi had privately taken as a very bad sign. Normally, the Saernai were punctilious to a fault, especially when it came to standing upon their dignity where primitives were concerned. The fact that Lach'heranu obviously couldn't have cared less that someone as low ranking as a mere admiral was privy to her diplomatic conversation with a head of state (even a mere human head of state) suggested that she had something else on her mind.

"I am afraid that I ca

"The attitude of your species has been most regrettable and obstructionist for the last several of your generations," Lach'heranu went on, cocking her foxlike ears while all three of her space-black eyes gazed sternly into her own communicator's visual pickup. She reached up and smoothed her purple, plushy fur, and Mugabi wished for far from the first time that he was capable of reading her species' facial expressions.

"The Federation has attempted ever since its first contact with your species to devise some means by which humans might be harmoniously integrated into the society of civilized races," the Saernai told the President. "In recognition of the responsibility which older and more advanced races owe to barbarous species which have yet to make the transition to true civilization, we have extended every possible consideration to you. Yet despite our efforts, entire generations of your political leaders have steadfastly refused to meet us even half way. While we recognize that it is particularly difficult for such a short-lived race to learn true wisdom, the fact that we have received such responses from so many of your leaders and their successors clearly indicates that your race's intransigent arrogance is an inherent quality and not one out of which it may be educated. As such, I fear that it is no longer possible for us to delude ourselves into believing that true change on the part of the human race is possible."